QA4ODFL2/Human Resource/Staff retention

Staff turnover is the rate at which staff leave an organisation per defined period of time. This is often expressed as a percentage of employees that leave an organisation per year or even quarterly. Employees can voluntarily choose to leave an organisation (voluntary turnover) or can be forced to leave by the employing organisation (involuntary turnover). There are push factors that cause voluntary staff turnover and good organisations aim to reduce such factors as a way of retaining staff. Figure 5 shows push factors that an organisation needs to address to alleviate staff turnover.

Figure 5: Causes of employee turnover Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Causes_of_employee_turnover.png CC BY-SA 3.0

Pushing away employees means losing whatever value is invested in that staff through staff development efforts, and investing in developing new staff that joins an organisation. Often it also takes a while to replace employees who leave, thus creating a gap in the running of a business and/or sometimes overloading existing staff. In open schooling, this may compromise the quality of support that is given to learners, which needs to be avoided at all cost.

Learning activity 4

1. Consider some of the reasons why staff leave your organisation. (Note that there are also good reasons why staff sometimes leaves an organisation).
2. Think about which push factors in Figure 5 might apply to your organisation? How can each factor be addressed to improve staff retention in your organisation? Write down your thoughts. If you have an opportunity, share your thoughts with one of your colleagues.
3. In the discussion forum, list some of the ways your organisation uses to attract and retain staff.

Click here to post your thoughts

Reflection

Staff may leave your organisation due to any one of the following reasons:

• They go for further studies,
• they get a higher paying job,
• they relocate to join family members,
• they prefer different working environments (e.g urban to rural environments)

You will notice that some of the reasons are good reasons. If you understand the reasons for staff leaving it can help you to think about what you need to do to try and retain the staff who are important to your mission of providing quality open schooling.